www.gearrice.com, Jul. 11, 2024 –
We are in a frenetic moment of development of new solutions to meet the needs of emerging technologies. JEDEC association, which among other things, is responsible for regulating and standardizing different DRAM technologies, has just announced that it has almost completed the new HBM4 standard with the clear objective of satisfying the needs of the artificial intelligence.
You may not know the HBM (High Bandwidth Memory) memories. This type of memory is usually used in professional graphics cards and different types of accelerators. These are areas where a large bandwidth is needed to transfer large amounts of data.
Bandwidth is the main difference with traditional GDDR memory used in gaming graphics cards. It should be noted that HBM memory is much more expensive to manufacture and more complex to install than GDDR memory.
JEDEC says HBM standard is almost ready
This new standard has been developed to replace HBM3, which is already beginning to be used in the industry. HBM4 aims to improve the data processing rate, while maintaining the basic characteristics of these memories, such as high bandwidth, as well as reduced energy consumption and greater capacity per chip and/or battery.
New memory is being developed specifically for emerging technological needs. Specifically, it is being developed for large data set tasks and, above all, for artificial intelligence. It is also being considered for high-performance computing and server fields.
One of the most interesting features is the introduction of a dual channel count per stack. In addition, the physical size of this channel is increased to improve data flow.
They want to offer maximum device compatibility, allowing a controller to operate with both HBM3 and HBM4 memory, interchangeably. All configurations will need several interconnectors to adapt to different spaces.
The new standard calls for 24GB and 32GB HBM4 memory layers to meet growing needs. In addition, memory stacks will be able to support TSV stacks of 4, 8, 12, and 16 levels in height. This will allow for 48GB stacks with 12 levels and 64GB with 16 levels.
Something that also seems clear is that a speed of up to 6.4 Gbps will be offered, as agreed by the committee in charge of the development. This should allow a bandwidth of up to 2 TB/s. At the moment the working frequencies have not been specified, but it is said that they will be quite high. Of course, at no time will the energy efficiency characteristic of these memories be sacrificed.